The Bharatiya Janata Party has done remarkably well in the Naxal belt. In Chhattisgarh, in the worst-affected Bastar constituency, the BJP’s Dinesh Kashyap was declared winner with 3,85,829 votes. He defeated his nearest rival, Deepak Karma of the Congress by 1,24,359 votes. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Soni Sori came fourth and got only 16,903 votes. Significantly, 38,772 votes were cast here for NOTA.
Gadchiroli in Maharashtra comes under the Maoist guerrilla zone (their strongest) that is called Dandakaranya Special Zone Committee (DKSZC). Here, the BJP's candidate Ashok Mahadeorao Nete has got 5,35, 982 votes, while his nearest rival Dr. Usendi of the Congress got 2,99,112 votes.
In Jharkhand as well, the BJP’s victory from the Naxal-affected seats of Chatra, Singhbhum and Palamau looked imminent. In Palamau, Jharkhand’s former director-general of police and BJP candidate Vishnu Dayal Ram was poised for a comfortable win with 4,73,783 votes, while his nearest rival, Manoj Kumar from Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal had a little over 2 lakh votes at 6 pm. Here, the former Maoist commander Kameshwar Baitha, who fought on a Trinamool Congress ticket this time, was in fourth position with just over 36,000 votes in his favour.
In Singhbhum, Jharkhand, Laxman Giluwa has won with a margin of over 87,000 votes. (He got total of 303131 votes). In Chatra, BJP’s victory looked certain with its candidate Sunil Kumar Singh leading by a comfortable margin of about 1.70 lakh votes.
BJP’s Hari Manjhi won the Gaya (Reserved) seat in Bihar. He got 3,26,230 votes, while his nearest rival from the RJD got 2,10,726 votes. In Jamui, Lok Jan Shakti Party’s Chirag Kumar Paswan was declared winner at 2,85,354 votes. He is the son of the LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan; the LJP is in alliance with the BJP in Bihar.
Most of the Naxal-affected constituencies saw a significant increase in the voter turnout this time. Bastar, for example, recorded almost 60 per cent voting as compared to 47.33 per cent in 2009.
